Messala's scarlet and gold would have been but little better had not the citizens of Antioch, proverbially a race of courtiers, joined the Romans by adopting the color of their favorite.

There were left then the country people, or Syrians, the Jews, and the Arabs; and they, from faith in the blood of the sheik's four, blent largely with hate of the Romans, whom they desired, above all things, to see beaten and humbled, mounted the white, making the most noisy, and probably the most numerous, faction of all.
As the charioteers move on in the circuit, the excitement increases; at the second goal, where, especially in the galleries, the white is the ruling color, the people exhaust their flowers and rive the air with screams.
"Messala! Messala!" "Ben-Hur! Ben-Hur!" Such are the cries.
Upon the passage of the procession, the factionists take their seats and resume conversation.
"Ah, by Bacchus! was he not handsome ?" exclaims a woman, whose Romanism is betrayed by the colors flying in her hair.
"And how splendid his chariot!" replies a neighbor, of the same proclivities.

"It is all ivory and gold.

Jupiter grant he wins!" The notes on the bench behind them were entirely different.
"A hundred shekels on the Jew!" The voice is high and shrill.
"Nay, be thou not rash," whispers a moderating friend to the speaker.
"The children of Jacob are not much given to Gentile sports, which are too often accursed in the sight of the Lord." "True, but saw you ever one more cool and assured?
And what an arm he has!" "And what horses!" says a third.
"And for that," a fourth one adds, "they say he has all the tricks of the Romans." A woman completes the eulogium: "Yes, and he is even handsomer than the Roman." Thus encouraged, the enthusiast shrieks again, "A hundred shekels on the Jew!" "Thou fool!" answers an Antiochian, from a bench well forward on the balcony.

"Knowest thou not there are fifty talents laid against him, six to one, on Messala?
Put up thy shekels, lest Abraham rise and smite thee." "Ha, ha! thou ass of Antioch! Cease thy bray.